They were never designed for routine “cycling” to begin with, it was originally meant as an emergency thing that wouldn’t routinely be tapped just to keep market prices even. It was there so that the military could continue operating in the event of an extreme shortage.

It’s basically just some old salt mines that a bunch of oil got pumped into.

It used to be government and politicians thought about the long term future, or at least I thought that was the point. Nowadays it’s just the next election.